Texas Led Nation in Catastrophic Losses in 2015

Tornadoes, hailstorms and fires took their toll on Texas last year with insured losses well over $3 billion, according to an insurer trade group

The state had over three times as many claims and almost three times the dollar amount in losses as the next highest ranked states, the Insurance Council of Texas reported.

The numbers don’t include flood losses, which were in the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to Mark Hanna, a spokesman for the ICT.

The 2015 estimated insured losses were prepared by the Property Claim Services (PCS), which that monitors all states’ insured losses, including homeowner, commercial property and auto insurance, from catastrophic weather events.

Flood losses are provided by the National Flood Insurance Program, which is under FEMA.

PCS lists a catastrophic weather event as any storm that causes in excess of $25 million in insured losses. Texas had 16 catastrophic weather events last year.

Texas had $3.2 billion in estimated insured losses from catastrophic weather events last year compared to the next highest state, California, with $1.2 billion.

Other high ranking states include Massachusetts with $1.1 billion, followed by Illinois, Oklahoma and Colorado (see chart).

Texas had 466,250 claims from catastrophic weather events as compared to the next highest state, Massachusetts, which had 139,750 claims.